Basketball: Bellamy leaves legacy

Monday

Walt Bellamy was a giant on the basketball court, and the legacy he left on his hometown loomed even larger.

Walt Bellamy was a giant on the basketball court, and the legacy he left on his hometown loomed even larger.

Born on July 24, 1939, Bellamy became the most accomplished and celebrated athlete to come from New Bern.

Bellamy died on Saturday at the age of 74 in Atlanta. He has a street named after him in New Bern and when he was in town, he attended nearby Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church.

“(Walt) was an inspiration for people,” said Ron Bellamy, Walt’s half-brother. “I didn’t hear too many people say negative things about him.

“He accomplished all this when there was the Civil Rights Movement, a lot of racial tension and he kind of broke that barrier in basketball for this neighborhood.”

Ron Bellamy, a former professional boxer, was 26 years younger than Walt. They had the same father, but different mothers.

Still Ron admired his brother.

“When I was a little teenager, I was always using him as motivation,” said Ron, 48, who lives in Jacksonville. “He was in the NBA, and I watched him several times. He was an inspiration for me and it gave me something to strive for.

“That’s probably why I became an athlete myself.”

The start of it all

Bellamy learned how to play basketball on the playgrounds in New Bern, then with West Street School and J.T. Barber High School.

By the time he turned 14 years old, Bellamy was already 6-foot-1, but his game was still raw.

J.T. Barber coach Simon Coates taught Bellamy the fundamentals and helped him throughout high school and college.

Johnnie Sampson, a Craven County commissioner, was a senior captain on the basketball team when Bellamy was a freshman.

“He was really trying to make something out of himself,” Sampson said. “He wasn’t a guy who was running the streets and doing things like other boys.

“He was trying to do the best he could and he really worked hard at basketball to try to make it. He did what the coaches asked him to do and he followed their advice.”

Bellamy, like a lot of the kids in his neighborhood, grew up struggling to make ends meet. Money was tight and food was sparse.

“During the times we were playing basketball, Walt was struggling trying to make it in life, going to school, and his family had to get help from other families in the community,” Sampson said.

“We tried to get together to help one another because it was a trying time.”

In his senior year at J.T. Barber High School, Bellamy guided his team to the 1956 football state championship and garnered all-state recognition.

He scored 47 points in a game against Durham in the 1956 state basketball playoffs.

Ed Bell, a J.T. Barber team captain, was more than just a teammate and classmate. He was one of Bellamy’s closest friends. They were groomsmen in each other’s weddings.

“We grew up together,” Bell said. “Over the years, I would go see him play and stay at his house. When he was in town, he would stay at my house.”

Grows up

Bellamy grew to be 6-foot-11, and went on to play college basketball at Indiana University for coach Branch McCracken.

He was an All-American in 1960 and 1961, finishing his college career with 1,070 points. He averaged 17.8 rebounds per game as a senior.

“In the summer after my junior year of high school, I played with some guys from Indiana,” Bellamy once told the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald Times. “Indiana at the time was closest school to the South that would accept African-Americans. It was an easy transition for me to make.”

Bellamy was a member of the gold-winner 1960 U.S. Olympic team in Rome. It was a team loaded with future hall of famers – Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas.

Bellamy was drafted with the first overall pick in the 1961 NBA Draft and elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993.

Bell attended the hall of fame ceremony in Springfield, Mass.

Long NBA career

Bellamy played 14 seasons with the Chicago Packers, Baltimore Bullets, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Jazz.

Bellamy, the 1962 NBA Rookie of the Year, averaged 31.6 points and 19 rebounds in his first season. He was a four-time NBA All-Star and finished with 20,941 points and 14,241 rebounds.

“I was always amazed that he scored 20,000 points and had 14,000 rebounds,” said Ron Bellamy. “He was well respected in the community.

“Back in the 70s, he might have made $400,000 or something like that, but back then, that was probably like three or five million today.”

End of an era

Ron Bellamy said he last spoke to Walt a month or two ago, then got a call from Walt’s son Darren on Saturday.

“I hadn’t heard from Darren in a while and I knew, when I answered the phone and said hello and asked how he was doing, he said ‘not too well,’” Ron said. “I knew in my heart what he was going to tell me.

“I knew what the news was going to be even before he spoke it. It was a sunken feeling in my heart.”

Walt Bellamy attended the Atlanta Hawks’ basketball game on Friday before suddenly passing away the following day.

Bellamy was planning on joining Bell, and his former J.T. Barber teammates, on Friday in New Bern for the New Bern Hall of Fame induction of Reubin Best.

They were going to celebrate afterwards at Applebees.

Bell last spoke with his good friend last Wednesday and had planned to call him on Saturday.

“I couldn’t believe it because we made plans to come down there and enjoy the induction of our classmate Reubin,” Bell said. “We were looking forward to that and our teammates getting together.

“He is one of the greatest athletes to come out of New Bern. They built a road off of Jones Street where he was living, which is Walt Bellamy Drive, in honor of him.”

Walt Bellamy timeline

1939 – Born on July 24

1956 – Led J.T. Barber High School, in New Bern, to a football state championship; named all-state.

1957 – Graduated from J.T. Barber High School

1958-1961 – Played college basketball at Indiana University

1960 – Member of the Gold-medal winning 1960 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team

1961 – Selected first by the Chicago Packers in the NBA Draft

1962 – NBA Rookie of the Year (31.6 points, 19 rebounds)

1974 – Played his final game in the NBA with the New Orleans Jazz

1993 – Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

2013 – Died in Atlanta, Ga.

Adam Thompson can be contacted at 252-635-5669 or at Adam.Thompson@newbernsj.com. Follow Adam on Twitter @Adam_matic.

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